Friday, February 10, 2012

Jim Kovach is still looking for a touchdown.
The former San Francisco 49ers linebacker was in Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI, not to play ball but to demonstrate his new company’s mobile technology, which can turn a stadium full of spectator smartphones into an instant social network, security alert system and direct-to-consumer marketing channel.
A seven-season player, mostly with the New Orleans Saints, Kovach managed to get both law and medical degrees during his playing career. He was later executive director of the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato until June 2010, when he got the startup bug and left to run his own company, Athleticode, a venture using genetic testing to predict sports injuries.

Josh Turnage is your typical teenager, trying to discover what he wants to do in college and with his life. But a 7-minute, 41-second YouTube video he produced about his mother's fight with breast cancer may thrust him into a debate between drug makers and the agency that regulates them.